Budget 2013: Cool Cucumber Chidambaram takes the Cake

Chidambaram with his grand daughter Aditi Nalini before leaving his residence to present the Annual Budget 2013-14 in Parliament.

"My grand father is always good and he was good today too." That was Aditi, Chidambaram's twelve-year-old granddaughter who visited Parliament for the first time this year, though her grandfather was presenting his eighth budget. "She just got eligible having turned twelve," her father, Karti Chidambaram a regular at PC's budget says even as he looked on from the Speaker's gallery. For this little girl, watching the House in session was a treat in itself.

"Its nice to see the politicians up and close," she said even though she seemed disinterested in the complicated arithmetic, her grandpa put out. The finance minister's family- led by his wife, son and daughter-in law, is a regular at the speaker's gallery each time he rises to present a new finance bill. Today was no different.

The man himself, PC, was a cool cucumber, unwilling to let the poll pandemonium dither him in what he had set out to do. And this time around, PC is even willing to go an extra step to drive home his cool quotient. "I played a small role in convincing my father for the Google hangout; its important to reach out in today's day and time," Karti said. The finance minister is interacting in the virtual world on Monday on the Google Hangout Platform, a first for Chidambaram who is known to still use a sub Rs 2000 phone, instead of the snazzy Blackberrys or I phones, his cabinet colleagues sport.

Take his jibes at the press conference that came soon after thumbs down from the markets. You would think, the finance minister would be uncomfortable, unsettled by how investors and the business community had reacted to his prudent measures, not to forget the brickbats by political opponents. Not this FM! Showing immense patience over every query, Chidambaram went about his job giving quick rebuttals and clarifications, at times his answers dipped in sarcasm, to drive home a point. Take for instance his answer to a question on how the government would manage the subsidy game.

"Our numbers are credible and we have worked for months to arrive at that," leaving no scope for a follow-up question. Or when he was asked about why he said "she" whilst talking about the benefits for the Rajiv Gandhi equity scheme- "That is man's way of looking at the world. How come no one asks such a question when he refer to the consumer as a he? I will increasingly refer to the individual as a she," he said. On being asked to react on the fact that the Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar had thanked the finance minister 7 times over, PC put his humble foot forward when he said "Iam thankful to him for giving me the due credit."